MANCORA, CHICLAYO & CAJAMARCA, PERU – SEPT. 24 TO OCT. 4

Shane, Seleka and I caught a taxi from the Ecuador boarder to Tumbes about a 20 minute drive away. In Tumbes, we caught a small passenger van about 2 hours south along the coast on the Pan American Highway to Mancora. We get to Mancora at about 4:00PM and it is a small surfing and fishing town with a beautiful beach. Our van is met by a number of guys on motor taxis wanting to take us to various hotels and hostels. While Shane stays with our luggage, Seleka and I go with one of the motor taxis and visit 3 or 4 hostels before finding one we like at a good price (my private room is $10US per night).

By the time we get settled into our rooms, it is time for dinner. None of us had lunch while travelling and we find a nice local restaurant and have Cerviche (raw fish marinated in lime) for dinner. Afterwards, we spend a relaxing evening playing cards while having a few local beers at the hostel. The next day is a leisurely day exploring the town, walking the beach and watching the kite surfers. It is quite windy and it is amazing how fast the kite surfers go and how high they jump off of the waves and we watch them for a couple of hours. We also want to book a day of fishing and we find a local guy with a boat and arrange to fish for 4 hours the next morning at 6:00AM for about $33US each.

The next morning, the motor taxi that we had arranged to pick us up does not show up. We find another motor taxi but we are not sure where to go to meet the boat. After a detour through town asking a lot of people where our captain keeps his boat, we finally find him at the commercial fishing dock but it is now 6:30AM and we are 30 minutes late. His boat is a small 5 metre wooden boat with a 20 horse outboard engine. We spend the first 30 minutes trolling along the shore south from town and I have 1 good strike but no other action. We then drop anchor about 1 km from shore and start fishing with hand lines with chunks of fish.

Raft Used by Local Fisherman

Within 20 minutes we have caught half a dozen small fish (about 10cm long). They are all the same type and we are thinking these are bait for other fishing but the captain speaks a form of Spanish that none of us can understand so we are not sure.

Over the next couple of hours, we move to a couple of other nearby locations and continue the same type of fishing but now we are catching slightly bigger fish of the same type around 20cm long. By the time our 4 hours has finished, we have caught more than 20 fish with the biggest being 21 or 22cm. This is not what we expected but at least the weather was really calm and we have been watching lots of Boobies, Pelicans and Sea Lions all morning. Once we get back to the dock, one of the local guys cleans the 6 largest fish for us. We then have fish for lunch and dinner that day, they are not the biggest fish I have caught but they taste good.

Watching the kite surfers has really excited Shane and Seleka, so the next morning they book 4 days of kite surfing lessons. I am going to head to Cajamarca in the northern highlands but it is over 12 hours by bus so I decide to go to Chiclayo which is 6 hours south of Mancora on the coast. Shane, Seleka and I talk about meeting up somewhere in a week or 2, maybe Huaraz which is in the central highlands. My bus is supposed to leave at noon but it is over 1.5 hours late. Then about 3 hours into the drive, we get stopped at one of the many security police checks along the highway near Piura. One of the bus staff, a woman, immediately comes from up front and sits next to the rear bathroom. A minute later, a policeman comes on the bus and one of the first things he does is look into the bathroom at the back of the bus where he finds a bunch of small tanks full of gasoline. He starts to ask questions of the people at the back of the bus and he has a lengthy conversation with the woman from the bus company.

The bus is then driven off the highway into a residential neighborhood with the policeman on board. A bunch of police are waiting and everyone is taken off the bus and they collect passports and ID from everyone on the bus. We learn that the gas on the bus is from Ecuador (where gas is less than ½ the price) and it has been illegally brought over the boarder as the bus originated in Ecuador that morning. The woman from the bus company tries bribing the police to no avail and the bus driver is taken away to the police station. We sit there for 4.5 hours with no bathrooms, restaurants or stores nearby waiting. I find out the woman on the bus talking to the police is a senior person from the bus company and I try to get her to give me a partial refund or a ticket for the morning bus to Chiclayo so I can stay the night in Piura before continuing on in the morning but she refuses.

Sipan

Finally around 9:00PM, the bus driver is brought back to the bus and we get on our way. We arrive in Chiclayo around midnight and I catch a taxi to the Hospedaje Concordia where I get a room for $18US. I am also so happy to see a pizzeria open across the street as I am starving because I have not eaten since I left Mancora. I decide to spend the next day in Chiclayo looking for a new computer. Chiclayo is a fairly large city just over 400,000 in population so I´m hopeful I can find something suitable. The only tablets I can find in the local stores are I-Pads and the Samsung Galaxy and neither will suit my needs.

I do find an ASUS dealer and find out that ASUS Peru is out of stock of their tablets and new stock is scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks but there may be some stock in the larger cities like Lima or Trujillo.

The next day, I carch a city bus to the nearby ruins of Sipan. I never would have found the right bus if it was not for a local buy who spent an hour helping me find the right bus. Sipan dates to about 200AD and consists of some crumbling pyramids that was used to bury nobility and religous leaders. There is a small museim and rhe ruins to expliore and I am on site for a couple of hours.



Cajamarca Plaza Aramas Church

  The next morning, I catch a 9:00AM bus to Cajamarca which is 6 hours away. The terrain along the northern coast of Peru is desert with sand everywhere and cacti lining the highways. The bus winds through the desert for a couple of hours before climbing into the mountains. It is still very arid in the mountains and the terrain reminds me of the southern Okanagan Valley in BC. I arrive in Cajamarca around 4:00PM and get a room at the Hostal Becerra for $10US.

Cajamarca has played a significant role in the history of modern day Peru. This is where the Spanish conquistador Pizarro and his men (only



Cajamarca Plaza Armas

 about 200 Spaniards) ambushed and captured Atahualpa, the Inca emperor. In the battle in the town´s main square, over 5000 Inca warriors were killed but not a single Spaniard was lost. Atahualpa was held for several months in Cajamarca while his people brought riches from the empire trying to buy his release. Once it became clear that the Spaniards were not going to release him, he plotted a revolt which the Spaniards caught wind of and he was executed in the main plaza.

Peru has a large Chinese population and that evening, I have a nice dinner at one of the many Chinese Restaurants near the Plaza de Armas.



Rocks Formation Near Cumbe Mayo

 The next day I explore the town, work on posting some blogs at an internet café and I book a tour for the next morning to Cumbe Mayo. Cumbe Mayo is located 20km southwest in the mountains above Cajamarca. It is famous for the 9km of aqueducts built over 2500 years ago. The area is also known for some unique rock formations left behind after the last ice age about 10,000 years ago.

The bus ride to Cumbe Mayo takes about an hour and the country side is beautiful. Just after we cross the continental divide, we get to where our walking tour starts. But things don´t start the way I would like as I get bitten by a dog as I´m

taking a picture. Luckily the bite just barely breaks the skin of my shin and the dog ran off before I could give it a kick. We walk through some amazing rock formations for a couple of kilometers before getting to a small valley where the aqueduct starts. The part of the duct that we see runs for 4km to the continental divide. There is only a 2 metre height difference over this 4kms and the duct is carved out of the valley´s volcanic stone for most of the way. There are even a few low points where above ground rock bridges are built for the duct. Considering that only stone tools were available to the people who made it, the aqueduct is amazing. The valley where the duct begins was supposed to



Cumbe Mayo Aqueduct

 be sacred as was the water in it. The aqueduct brought this water to a town located where present day Cajamarca is located but it was only used for religious ceremonies and not for drinking or irrigation.

During the tour, my camera was really acting up. The 4 months in the humidity of Central America really took its toll on my camera. There are some fairly large round dead spots of the camera´s LCD screen which fortunately do not affect the pictures. But today, it would not focus properly on the landscape and the image on the LCD would go in and out of focus for a few seconds and then the screen would go blank and a message would display telling be to turn the camera on and off again. Sometimes this would work and I could take pictures and sometimes I would have to turn the camera on and off multiple times before it would finally reset. I hope this is not the beginning of the end as my Panasonic camera was expensive when I bought it a couple of years ago and a nice new replacement 10X zoom camera will be expensive.

While on the tour of Cumbe Mayo, a German traveller told me about a town to the north called Chachapoyas where some of the best ruins in all of Peru are supposed to be located. That evening, I read about this town in my guide book and it sound amazing. So, I decide to catch a bus there the next morning. I´m not sure when the bus departs so I head to the terminal around 7:00AM only to find that there is only 1 bus a day and it left at 4:20AM and it takes 12 hours to get there. So, I guess I´m staying another night but I get a hotel next to the bus terminal since my other hotel was a couple of kilometres away. I spend the day working on my blog and exploring more of the town. I´m pleased to see that my camera seems to be back to normal. I’m hoping it will last the trip but I kind of think it will likely die completely somewhere along the way.

I’m up just before 4:00AM the next morning. This is definitely the earliest bus yet that I have taken and it is pitch dark as the bus leaves. I´ve stocked up on food and drink for the 12 hour bus ride and I´m hoping the bus does not run late. I sleep for the first few hours but awake as the bus starts


Cajamarca

down into the deep canyon of the Rio Maranon Balsas. This canyon is huge and we descend for about 2 hours and more than 2000m to the river below. It is a narrow dirt road that twists and turns all the way down. There are many hairpin turns that the bus driver honks his horn around in case a vehicle is coming the other way. It takes even longer to go back up the other side of the canyon and the road is even worse. As we are going round some of the narrow corners, I look out my window and can´t see any road instead all I see is a drop that is often hundreds of metres to the ground below. There is also road work going on everywhere as most of the rock around the road is sandstone and it appears to be a non-stop job keeping the road passable. I´m glad it is not raining because



Road Through Canyon to Chachapoyas

 this road is the craziest road that I have ever seen and I can´t imagine driving it when it is wet.

Bye for now and more on Chachapoyas next time.

MONTANITA & CUENCA, ECUADOR - SEPTEMBER 20 TO 24

Getting to Montanita from Banos was a long 12 hours of travelling with 2 bus changes including one with a 2 hour layover in Guayaquil. Guayaquil is Ecuador's largest city and is situated on the southwest corner of the country on the Pacific coast. The city is hot, humid, sprawling, dirty and has a reputation for violent crime. It is actually built on a river a few kilometers from the coast but my guide book doesn't offer any reason why to stay here. The bus terminal is the biggest and most modern that I have seen yet with 3 levels of bus stalls and a shopping mall. I finally arrive in Montanita around 5:30PM and catch a taxi to the Hotel Sole Mare which is right on the beach a few minutes north of town.

Shane & Seleka at Cocktail Stand

I´m meeting Shane and Seleka Meyers at the hotel, I met them at the hostel I stayed at in Guatape Colombia. Shane and Seleka have reserved a room for me at $15US per night and I'm soon sitting on a beach front deck drinking beer with Shane. It's his 25th birthday (for the 11th time) and we soon head into town for some cocktails. The main road off the beach is full of little stands on either side of the road, instead of selling food or souvenirs they all sell blended mixed drinks. We go to Shane and Seleka's favourite stand and have a few drinks while the sun sets. Then we head to one of the town's nicest restaurants for dinner and more drinks. It's nice to catch up with friends again.

Shane and Seleka were going to head south the next day but they decide to stay for an extra day and wait for me as I'm wanting to travel south towards Peru as well. So, the next day is a maintenance day spent finishing the written post for the Galapagos trip, getting laundry done, relaxing on the beach and making another visit to our favourite drink stand. I also download a movie from the internet which makes it impossible to post the Galapagos write up so I will do that when we get to our next destination which is Cuenca in south central Ecuador.

The next morning, we catch a 6:00AM bus to Guayaquil and transfer to a direct bus to Cuenca and arrive around 4:00PM. We all sleep for much of the trip but awake at the summit of the mountain pass in time to see some spectacular scenery. We book rooms at La Casa Cuencana for $10US and head to the main plaza to explore the city. We find an ice cream/coffee shop which we all agree is what the doctor ordered after a long bus trip. Cuenca seems to be a very prosperous town and the main plaza and surrounding few blocks are beautiful. We even stop and check out a hat factory and are amazed to see how much work it is to make a straw hat like the famous Panama Hat.

When we get back to the hostel a couple hours later, I decide to post the Galapagos write up and find that my Android tablet is missing from my day pack. I had left the pack in the room while we went and explored the town and I had not touched the tablet since we left Montanito. The window of my room that opens onto the courtyard is wide open which I do not remember it being when we left. I speak with the owner of the hostel and she tells us there are only us and one other elderly couple staying at the hostel and she says the window was open after they had cleaned the room this morning.

Hat Factory

She also says that no one has ever had anything stolen in the 8 years that the hostel has been open and I believe her sincerity. She asks about where my pack was when we were on the bus and this is something I was already thinking about. The bus from Guayaquil had very little leg room and instead of keeping my pack at my feet like I always do, I put the pack in the rack above my seat. Shane and Seleka were in the seats right in front of me but we all slept for much of the trip and I'm 90% sure this is when someone stole the tablet without any of us noticing. I figure there is a 1% chance that I left the tablet at the hotel in Montanito but when I call them they say it was not found in the room which is what I expected to hear.



Ingapirca

What a drag as the tablet cost me about $500 back in Vancouver and may be hard to replace. I need a SD card input to download my photos and I would like a keyboard or USB input for a keyboard; the only tablet I found that had these features was the ASUS Transformer that I had and I'm not sure I will easily find it here in Ecuador or in Peru. Maybe Lima will have ASUS's tablets but I won't be there for at least 2 weeks. Luckily all my photos up to the Galapagos trip were uploaded to the Picasa web storage site and I still have pictures dating back to Panama on my camera's SD card so no photos were lost. But until I get a new tablet, I will have no way of uploading photos for my blog posts and I will have to use Internet Cafes for writing my blog, making posts and checking emails a hassle. I actually surprised myself and took the loss of the tablet pretty well because in the big picture, it is not that big of a deal and I kind of expected some kind of theft during this trip. The worst thing that I lost was the Galapagos post which took me about 5 hours to write.

The next morning, we head to Ingapirca near Canar north of Cuenca which is the best Inca ruins is Ecuador. We had met the older couple who is in the hostel and they ask if they can join us which is fine with us. He is a very spry and active 81 and is originally from Toronto and she is 56 and originally from Germany. They both now live in Texas near Austin and are a very unique couple. He tells us stories of the 2 week ski trip he made to Utah this past winter, I sure hope I´m this active when I´m 81. We leave Cuenca on a bus at 9:00AM and it takes 2 hours to get to Ingapirca. The site is small but very interesting and we spend the first hour on a tour that is included in the entrance fee and then go on a short hike to visit a few more ruins in the country side. We all feel that this is just a small taste of what is to come in Peru. We are soon back on a bus to Cuenca and arrive around 4:00PM. We have a really nice dinner at an Asian Indian restaurant and all have some nice hot curry and Nan Bread.

The next morning we are off at 9:00AM for the Peruvian boarder and the surfing town of Mancora on the north coast. It takes the bus about 4 hours to get to Huaquillas which is on the boarder to Peru. Our guide book warns us that this town is not very safe and within 5 minutes of arriving, someone pick pockets my wallet. Again, it is not a big deal as I keep nothing in the wallet other than a small amount of cash (around $20US) but after getting my tablet stolen a couple days ago, I can't believe it. This town is really hectic and we can't seem to figure out exactly where the boarder is. We finally flag down a taxi and he takes us to a nice quiet boarder crossing about a 10 minute drive away. It is a brand new boarder crossing and the Ecuadorian exit immigration is in the same building as the Peruvian entry immigration and we are through the boarder in minutes. I sure hope this is the end of my bad luck but my mom always used to say that things happen in threes, I hope that is not the case this time.

I really enjoyed my time in Ecuador even though my tablet was stolen. The Galapagos Islands were fantastic and will be remembered as one of the highlights of this whole trip. The hiking in the highlands was awesome and Quito was such a nice surprise. I was also surprised how modern Ecuador was, I was expecting it to be one of the poorest countries I visit but Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua were all a lot poorer. This would be a good country to visit on a 2 to 4 week vacation as it is small and relatively easy to travel around. The Amazon jungle is also supposed to be very good but I will see some jungle in either Peru or Bolivia and certainly in Brazil.

See you next time from Peru, adios.

QUITO, LATACUNGA & BANOS ECUADOR - SEPT. 12 TO 19

On the the 12th, I land back at the Quito airport a little after 4:00PM and return to L'Auberge Inn where I had a reservation and where I had left my large pack before going to the Galapagos Islands. It had been a while since I had done any hikes, so the next morning I decided to go hike to the summit of Rucu Pichincha. Looking back, it probably wasn't my best decision as I had been at sea level for over 8 days and it should take a couple of days to readjust to the altitude at Quito. To make matters worse, the hike did not actually start in Quito, instead, I had to catch the Teleferico (Gondola) up to the top of the mountain on the east side of Quito.

The elevation at the top of the Teleferico is about 4200m which is where the trail begins. It's a 5 hour hike to the top of Rucu Pichincha and back and the trail steadily climbs to about 5000m. It is around 11:00AM when I start and the views of the city from the trail are awesome. The trail varies from a steady moderate uphill climb to a totally steep climb. By the end of the first 20 minutes, I'm already totally out of breath. I find I'm ok on the moderate inclines but the steep stuff is tough and I need to stop every couple of minutes for 20 to 30 seconds to catch my breath.

I also find that my hands and fingers have a slight tingly feel which I know is a sign that my body is not processing enough oxygen in the blood to my extremeties. I consider stopping and returning to the Teleferico but I continue on. Rucu Pichincha is a large rock face in the distance and I trudge on for a couple of hours. When I get to the bottom of the rock face the trail turns and traverses along the side of the rock face. I'm now at about 4800m and there is a steep drop to my right along this next section of the trail. After about 10 minutes, I start to notice how dizzy I am feeling and how narrow the path is and I finally realize that I'm just asking to take a nasty fall. I'm so close to the top which is only 500m farther up the trail but I turn around and descend back to the gondola.

The next morning I get up early and say goodbye to Quito and catch a bus to Latacunga which is about 2 hours south. The view from the bus that day is dominated by Cotopaxi which is Ecuador's famed snow capped, perfect cone shaped volcano and 2nd highes mountain at 5897m. Latacunga is a small city in the highlands right along the Pan-American Highway and I get a room at the Estambul Hotel for $12US. The town is nothing special although is does have a nice central plaza but it is a good base for some day hikes.

The next morning I catch a bus to La Luguna de Quilotoa which is a scenic crater lake. I am expecting a short 45 minute bus ride but it takes more than 2 hours and the bus goes uphill the whole way. There is supposed to be a nice 4 hour hike around the crater but when I see the lake, the hike looks much easier and shorter than the one I did a few weeks ago near Otavalo. It is just after noon now and the last direct bus back to Latacunga is at 3:15PM and I think I may just make it. A young German couple got off the bus with me and we decide to do the hike together.

The terrain here is very dry and the path around the lake is made of sand. It's like walking on really dry sand on the beach. It is also extremely windy along the top of the rim and either I'm sweating to death on the climbs or freezing in the wind. We quickly find that the trail goes up and down way more than it looks and much of the trail is on steep terrain so much of the trail slants sideways quite steeply which becomes hard on the feet and ankles. We are surprised to find that it takes more than 2.5 hours to get half way around where we stop for lunch and I'm starting to worry that the 1200ml of water I brought will not be enough. The trail is at about 4000m and I think the altitude is taking its toll again.

By about 5:00PM, the end is in site about 3kms away but there is one last long and steep climb and both the German girl and I are just about done. I'm thinking how much I want to stop but I'm in the middle of no where and it going to be dark in just over an hour. So, all I do is keep my eyes on the feet in front of me and focus on the next 100m. When we finally get to the top of the climb, I get a second wind and the last 1.5kms is not too bad. I drink the last of my water just as we are coming into town at 6:15PM as the sun goes down. This hike has kicked my butt. We catch a Collectivo down to a nearby town on a main highway and are soon on the bus back to Latacunga. For some reason I can't sleep on the bus like normal even though I'm exhausted. I have some fruit and snacks I keep for travelling at my hotel and I'm too tired to go to a restaurant for dinner so I just go back to my room and eat what I have and go to sleep.

The next morning I catch a bus to Banos which is only about 2 hours south. I was going to stay another day and go hiking but I am not up for it after yesterday's hike. Banos is a beautiful little town  nestled between the Rio Pastaza and the Tungurahua Volcano. The terrain reminds me a bit of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregan only with big mountains and volcanos. I'm looking forward to trying some of the famous hot spring baths that the town was named after and I find a room in a really nice hostal called Plantas y Blanco for $14US. I have been travelling for just over 6 months and surprisingly, I have not had any stomach problems that are usually associated with travelling in this part of the world, but that evening my luck runs out. I spend the next couple of days never letting a bathroom out of my site, hardly eating anything and not wanting to go anywhere near a bath.

Cotopaxi

After a couple of days, I'm finally feeling better and the MasterCard that I've been trying to get replaced for a couple months now has arrived at the Fedex depot in Quito. So I leave by bags at the hostel in Banos and catch a 7:00AM bus back to Quito which takes about 4 hours. The Fedex depot is on the other side of Quito from the bus station and it takes over an hour to get there by the city buses. Surprise, surprise the card is there, I kind of expected it not to be. So, I'm soon in a bus heading back to the south bus terminal and then catch another bus back to Banos and I get back around 6:00PM. What a long day of riding a bus but at least my stomach was back to normal.

Tomorrow I will catch an early bus to the coastal town of Montanito to meet up with Shane and Seleka who I met in Guatape to help celebrate Shane's 25th birthday (for the 11th time). Montanito is a well known surf town with one of the best beaches in Ecuador and it will be nice to see the mainland coast before heading to Peru and it will also be nice to catch up with friends.

During my time in Ecuador, I have really become aware of how many head hazards there are when you are my height travelling in Latin America. I have hit my head on something so many times that I have a permanent bump on the top of my head. This has been a problem ever since I left Mexico. It seems that there are no building codes or at least they are not inforced when it comes to heights of structures. The worst are doorways into bathrooms; for some reason there seems to always be a step from every hotel room up into the bathroom and the doorway is always low, but the doorway is just high enough that it is out of my field of view. The number of time I have hit the top of my head on the bathroom doorframe is too many to count. Stairwells with a ninety degree turns are also bad. The height above where the landing is never high enough and I always hit my head. Every doorway on Encantada, the boat in the Galapagos, was a head hazard. When I caught all the buses to Quito to get my credit card and then return to Banos was also interesting. I can't stand straight up on any bus but there is a hand rail that goes around the perimeter at less than my eye height. Many of the local women and some of the men can't even reach it so they have straps that hang down 6 or 8 inches. I've even had local people wanting to get my picture because I'm so tall and I often get interesting looks from people when I pass them on the street.

Adios for now amigos.

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS - SEPT. 4 TO 12



Northwest Corner of Isla de Isabela

 The Galapagos Islands are over 600kms from Ecuador´s coast and are located right on the equator. When I get off the plane I was expexting it to be hot and humid but was pleasantly surprised to find it only around 25C with moderate humidity. I am also interested to find that it is only a little after 11:00AM when we arrive as the islands are in a different time zone 1 hour behind the mainland. The airport is on the small flat Isla de Batra. Batra is where the US naval base and air strip was located during World War 2. The islands wildlife was devestated during this time and there now are only a few birds and lizards on the island. Batra is a very dry and desolate place with no settlements and no houses that I can see. A representative of our boat, Encantada, is there to meet the 6 of us that are on the plane. There is Rose and Felipe who are on a 3 week vacation from Switzerland. There is also Chris and Chloe, a married couple from Scotland and England who are riding motorcycles from Buenos Aires to Vancouver where they hope to live for a few years. And there is Katherine from England who is also riding a motorcycle around South America on her way to New York with her husband, but her husband stayed in Quito as he does not fly.

We grab our bags and catch a 15 minute bus to the Canal that separates Batra from the Isla de Santa Cruz. The Canal is only about 500 metres wide and we catch a passenger ferry across where 2 pickup trucks are waiting for us. It is a 40 minute drive to the town of Puerto Ayora on the islands south coast and the trucks drop us off at the tour company. There are 3 other guests waiting here for us with our naturalist/guide Reezo. They are Derek, an Irishman who lives in Perth Australia and Martin and Adona, a couple from Poland. The boat capacity for guests is 12 but there will only be the 9 of us plus one other guy from Belgium but only for 1 night as he will be dropprd off the next day on the Isla de Isabela. We all head to a nearby restaurant for lunch and we spend much of lunch try to get to know each other. Our bags are left at the tour office where they will then be transported to Encantada.

After lunch, we walk to the Charles Darwin Research Station which is a nursery and rehab centre for giant Tortoises. For hundreds of years pirates, whalers and other sea farers used Tortoises from the Galapagos Islands as a source of fresh meet and hundreds of thousand of the Tortoises were killed. Each island in the Galapagos has a unique Tortoise species and a couple are now extinct and a few others are still at risk like the Saddleback Tortoise. Sadly, the most famous Tortoise in the world named Lonesome George died back in June. He lived to over 125 years and lived the last 70 years as the only Tortoise of his species. He spent the last 40 years living in the research center.

We see juvenile tortoises that are kept for over 10 years before being released to the wild. There are also many adults that are used for breeding or are being rehabed after some kind of injury or illness. Reezo also shows us many different plant species as we walk throughout the reserve. The most unique being a cuctus tree that can live for over 1500 years.

We leave the Darwin Centre around 3:00PM and have a couple of hours to kill before we are to meet at the main docks to catch a launch to Encantada. Chris, Chloe, Kat and I head to a nice ocean front bar for a couple of drinks while we wait and find a female Sea Lion asleep on the bar´s patio. We joke that she has had a few too many to drink and we hear a moan or a grunt from her ever so often to remind us that she is there. There are also some juvenile Marine Iguanas and some red crabs on the patio. It is a nice precursor to the marine life we all hope to see during our 6 day cruise. We then catch a launch to the boat at 5:30PM.

As we approach the boat, it is pointing into the wind away from us and looks quite small. But as we get closer, I see that it is a large red ketch (sailboat with 2 masts with the front mast being the largets), probably around 70 feet long. Once we are aboard, we gather in the main salon to meet the crew of 5, there is the captain, the 1st mate, the engineer, the cook and the bartender. Reezo then assigns us to our rooms and I am sharing a state room with Derek. I warn him that I may snore but he seems unconcerned. We grab our bags and head to our rooms.




Bar Sea Lion

 The rooms are small but nice with bunk beds and a private bathroom. We then head back to the salon for dinner which is very good. Encantada gets underway as soon as dinner is over; we will be motoring to Puerto Villamil at the southern end of Isla de Isabela. Apparently we will often travel at night so we are at our destination when we awake in the morning, tonight we are supposed to arrive around 4:00AM. After dinner is over, I spend an hour or so socializing with everyone but I am exhausted after my 3 hour sleep the night before and head to bed. It is vey noisy in our room with the engine sounds and the noise of the boat going through the water. I fall asleep right away but awake a few times in the night as I am almost rolled out of bed because of the rough sees and I move tight to the bulkhead to ensure I don´t roll out of bed, I´m so glad I have the bottom bunk.

The next morning I´m up at 6:45 as breakfast will be servered at 7:00AM each day and I have slept surprisingly well. With all the sounds in our room neither Derek or I heard anyone snoring. After breakfast, we catch the launch to a small nearby island. Thousands of years ago, hot lava met the sea here in a explosion of steam and the shore is a narly mess of twisted lava. We hike along a path and immediately come across hundreds of juvenile Marine Aguanas. There is also a large crack in the lava field that is 3 or 4 metres wide and leads to the ocean. There are Stingrays and Whitetip Sharks in the crack. They are there to get cleansed of parasites by small fish that live there.

We then continue on and come to a nice beach. We are surprised that the beach is a light tan colour instead of black sand as you would expect because of all the black lava. Reezo explains that the islands are quite young and the lava has not been eroded down into sand yet and the sand we see is from the erosion of the coral reefs that surround the islands. Once on the beach, we come across many Sea Lions, they are all females and many are with young pups. It is amazing how close we are able to get to the Sea Lions without them reacting. One even is lying right on our pathway and we get within a metre as we walk around it. There are also adult Marine Aguanas all over. They are 1 to 1.5 metres long nose to tail and are black in colour. They lie in piles often on top of each other trying to keep warm. It is a bit cool for their likes so we don´t see any going swimming for a meal.

After a couple of hours on shore, we head back to the boat and find the captain is waiting for us. There has been a large 6.7 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and a Tsunami warning has been issued. If a Tsunami comes, it won´t be here for about 4 hours but the Navy has ordered all passengers to shore which means our morning snorkelling is cancelled. We all pack a small bag to bring to shore and then have lunch around 11:00AM before catching the launch to Puerto Villamil. We are scheduled to ride bicycles to another Tortoise reserve but all of the park facilities are closed because of the Tsunami warning so we head to a hotel awaiting further info. If the Navy announces that a wave is coming, Encantada will make a run for the open ocean. There´s Wi-Fi at the hotel and I log onto CCN´s website and the Tsunami warning has just been cancelled but it will take some time before the news filters down through all of the government channels.

Finally at about 2:00PM, we find out that one park location, a cave, in the hills of the volcano is open. The volcanos on the islands are nothing like volcanos that I have seen before. We will be riding up Sierra Negra which is about 25kms wide and around 1000 metres high. It is conical shaped but the sides gently slope towards the ocean and the crater is the largest in the world at over 2km in diameter. We get our bikes and start riding, Reezo is following in a large pickup truck behind us. A few kilometers in, we come across a small lake with 7 Pink Flamingos. We are pretty lucky to see them as there are less than a thousand throughout the Galapagos. After about 10kms, we start up the volcano. I ride uphill for a couple more kilometers and stop and ask Reezo how much farther and he says it is still quite a ways¨. I have rode a bike once on this trip and I can´t remember that last time I rode back home and I decide to put my bike in the truck and drive up the volcano. After about 15 minutes, everyone else has joined me in the truck except Chris, Felipe, Derek and Kat.

They ride on for another 30 or 40 minutes before we get to the cave. It´s kind of funny, this is not supposed to be what we are doing so we have no helmuts, no headlamps and no flash lights, but Reezo leads us into the cave. All we have is an I-Phone in the flash light mode. After several people hit their heads including Reezo, we realize that caving isn´t fun without the right gear and return to the bikes. We head to a local fruit farm and see many different types of fruit and eat the juiciest, sweetest oranges that I have ever had. We then continue down and stop at the Tortoise Reserve which is way down near town but it is not open. So, we head to a bar instead for a few drinks before hearing that the Tsunsmi never happened and the warning was cancelled so we head back to Encantada for dinner. After dinner, Encantada is once again on her way to our next destination, Punta Moreno on the southwest side of Isla de Isabela.



Blue-Footed Boobies

 The next morning we are up for a 7:00AM breakfast and are on our way in the launch to the island by 8:00AM where we hike a huge lava field. This one air dried and is not as crazy as the one we walked yesterday and it is huge. We are now on the other side of Seirra Negra volcano and the lava field goes for 20 or 30kms in both directions. It is a very barren black landscape that hits temperatures above 40C in the warm season of February and March. There are a few catii growing out of the cracks here and there otherwise there seems to be nothing. But then we start coming across some collapased lava tubes that hold some brackish water. These are oasis in the lava fields with trees, grass, other plants and birds. Once again we get lucky and see a few Flamingos. When we get back to the launch, we do a short tour around the shore where we see Blue-Footed Boobies, Flightless Comorans, Galapagos Penguins, Pellicans, Sea Lions, Marine Aguanas and Sea Turtles.

Once back on Encantada, we are away almost immediately for Elizabeth Bay a couple of hours north along the coast. We sit up front of the bow of the boat watching our entourage of Frigate birds that follow the boat and sit in the rigging. We arrive just after lunch and do a tour of some mangrove swamps on the launch. There are dozens of Sea Turtles everywhere, the 1st mate has to be careful to not run one over with the outboard engine. We also see a few Stingrays glide by. When we get back to Encantada, it´s time for our 1st snorkelling trip. The water is only around 17C and I´m not pleased to find out that the largest shorty wetsuit is only a large which just is not going to cut it. Oh well, I guess I will see how well I can handle cold water. We head out on the launch to a rocky shore and when I hit the water it is a shock. After a couple of minutes I´m thinking I can´t do this but then I get used to the water temperature and I´m fine. As I snorkel along the shore, there are Sea Turtles in every little bay I come across. I soon find groups of 4, 5 or 6 turles, they are everywhere.

There are also lots of fish like 3 or 4 types of Parrot fish, Mexican Hog Fish and large schools of other fish but I´m preoccupied with all of the turtles. I even see a couple of Penguins but they quickly dart off. After about 50 minutes, I´m the last back into the boat and just then a Sea Lion swims by and I´m tempted to dive back in and see if he wants to play.

That evening after dinner, we run out of beer. Most of the beer that was on board got loose in the cargo hold the first night and the bottles all broke, maybe they should bring only cans from now on.

We also get a reprieve and stay anchored that night until 6:00AM when we raise anchor and head north to Punta Espenoza. The noise in our cabin is not much different as the generator runs all night but at least the boat was not bouncimg around all night. I get up once we start motoring as we are heading through a narrow strait between Isla Fernandino and Isla de Isabela and there are supposed to be a lot of whales in this area. After about 15 munutes of motoring, the 1st mate spots some whale spouts in the distance. At first I don´t see them but then I do but they are so far away I only see the spray of the whale spout but not the whale. As Kat joins me on deck, a whale surfaces right beside the boat. I figure everyone will want to see them so I head below a call out that there are whales, Adonis is out of her room like a shot only wearing a towel and everyone else soon joins us. At first they seem to be gone, then they are all around us. One surfacing on our port bow and then crosses in front of us and I think we are going to hit it but we just miss. I´m not sure waht type of whale these were but they were quite small around 10 to 15 metres but it was nice seeing them.

By the time breakfast is over, we are at Punta Ezpenoza. We head to shore for a hike along the beach. Once again there are lots of Iguanas and Sea Lions. The highlight being a group of 3 female Sea Lions and a pup that are lying in a group. When we first approach, they noisily move off into the water. The pup makes a sound kind of like a sick goat but they only go a metre or so in the water. After a few minutes, the mother Sea Lion decides we are no threat and shr and her pup come marching out of the water right where we are standing. We scatter and she soon comes to a stop about 1 metre away. It´s amazing how close these animals get to us. We finally see some Iguanas swimming which is cool, they only use their tail to swim. We also see all kinds of birds like Boobies, Penguins, Commorans, Pellicans amd Frigate Birds.

When we get back to Encantada, we gear up for more snorkelling. The water is a little warmer today at a balmy 20C.

We snorkel along the shore and there are once again lots of turtles. We then come across a lone Sea Lion but she is kind a shy an darts out of the rocks a couple of times and swims around us. We comtinue on and Felipe, Chris and I come to a small cove with 2 large Sea Turtles. There is also another Sea Lion and she wants to play. She is in the water along the rock bottom and sits there motionless staring at us like a dog does when they want to play. Then she comes darting out and zips around us at amazing speeds getting less than a metre from us. It´s amazing with her zipping around us then returning to the cove and staring back at us to only come flying out again seconds later while the 2 turles just continue to feed on the seaweed. We spend about 10 minutes enjoyimg the spectacle before it was time to head back to the launch. It was the best 10 minutes of snorkelling I have ever done.

The moment we get back to Encanrada, she is underway as the crew had already pulled up anchor. We are heading a couple hours north to Punta Vicente Roca near the northwest end of Isabela. Kat and I sit up at the bow and watch the frigate birds and hope to spot more whales or maybe dolphins. What we see instead are what appear to be large grey dorsal fins every 10 minutes or so. The captain tells us these are Sun Fish and we hope to get a better look at them because the fins are so big. Just after lunch we anchor in a large bay near the remants of a volcano. The cliffs go up for hundreds of metres here and half of the volcano collapsed into the sea tens of thousands of years ago. There is a large cave visible along the cliff. The entrance to the cave is at least 20m wide and seems to go into the cliffs quite a distance.

We gear up for more snorkelling and this time the capatian comes with us. At first we snorkel along a large shallow bay and we immediately get checked out by a group of 3 Sea Lions but they soon swim off. I can´t believe how many turtles there are in this bay, there are hundreds of them. They are sitting on the bottom, at the surface and feeding along the shallows. Visibility if probably around 15 to 20m and I do a slow 360 and count 20 turtles within my field of vision. I swim a few metres and some of the turtles fade from sight while more appear, it is simply incredible. As we continue along the shore heading towards the cave, the bottom drops off and we are swimming along a rock face. Huge schools of fish swim by some into the thousands.


Derek Snorkelling in the Sunny Depths

 The sun is almost directly above us and the blue rays of sun shining down into the depths around us is amazing. Chris and Derek see a large Galapagos Shark swim by below us but I miss it. We start to enter the cave and there are fish and turtles everywhere. I even come across a couple of Penguins and swimming Iguanas. Suddenly I see a large grey shape emerge from the dark of the cave and it´s a Sun Fish. It is shaped like a large disk swimming vertically with a large fin the sticks up above and below it and it is probably over 2m from one fin tip to the other. The cave goes in a good 10 to 15 metres, we can hear a Sea Lion barking somewhere in the darkness at the back of the cave.

When we swim out of the cave, Chris, Felipe and I see another Sun Fish near the surface. We give chase and we soon realize there are 2 of them but they are amazingly fast and they soon disappear in the distance. We have been in the water for more than an hour and it is time to head back to the launch. What an amazing snorkel!

We quickly change and jump back into the launch to tour along the cliffs looking at the sea birds. There are hundreds of Blue-Footed Boobies and many are fishing along the cliff face. They fly 50 metres or so above the ocean and when they see a fish, they turn towards the ocean and tuck in their wings and drop like a stone barely making a splash when they hit the water, they then pop back up to the surface a few seconds later hopefully with a fish in their beak. If there is a school of fish, there is often dozens of them diving simultaneously, it is amazing to watch. We come across a few Red-Footed Boobies high up in the cliffs but we cannot actually see their telltale red feet.



Flightless Commoran

 Encantada is ready to go once we come back from bird watching and we are immediately on our way. A school of 5 Sun Fish pass us as we leave and within minutes we round the point and have amazing views of what is left of the collpsed volcanos inner crater. There is one amazing rock formation called The Monk but I think it looks more like Homer Simpson and the Boobies are really putting on a show as there must be a large school of bait fish in the bay. We watch an incredible sunset as we round the northern tip of Isabela and we are heading for the north end of the Isla de Santiago about 9 hours away to the south.

It´s our last full day of the tour and we awake at Puerta Egas where a Mina de Sal (Salt Mine) used to be located. After breskfast, we head to shore for another hike. We instantly come across more Iguanas and Sea Lions. We see a mother and a very young pup and the remnants of the plecenta is visible next to the mother so the pup is probsbly only a day or 2 old. A little farther down the beach we come across a Galapagos Hawk which is the largest bird of prey in the Galapagos. It is sitting on some rocks watching the Sea Lions looking for a young pup to carry away as a meal. We walk along a lava sea front and there sre msny collapsed lava tubes which make for some interesting rock formations including nstural srches. Hiding amongst these old lava tubes is the rare Galapagos Fur Seal. It looks a lot like the Sea Lion only fatter, a bit smaller and with longer fur. There are many sea birds around the lava tubes including some Great Blue Herons that look just like the ones back hime in BC.

Once back on Encantada, it´s time for more snorkelling. Once again the sea life abounds with turtles, iguanas, penguins, sea lions and tons of fish. By the time we get back to the Encantada it is lunch time. After lunch, we head to a Playa Espumilla which is the nicest beach we have seen so far. We go on a short hike up to an old estuary which has now dried up. Back on the beach, we come across a trail in the sand left last night by a mother Sea Turtle that climbed the beach to lay its eggs with another trsil back to the sea. It must have been a big turtle as the trail it left was quite impressive.

We then do our last snorkel near the beach. We see tons of fish at this spot but surprisingly, there are no turtles. And even though I have seen hundred of turtles the last 3 days, I miss seeing them on this snorkel. We spend a quite night in this bay. I have loved this trip and I really enjoyed meeting everyone on the boat especially Derek, Chris, Chloe, Felipe, Rose and Kat. Hopefully Chris and Chloe´s Canadian work visas will be approved and I will see them again in Vanacouver once I am back. By 6:00AM, the boat is once again on its way north. We come to a small round rock island called Daphne Mayor and we quickly circle it for one last look at the sea birds, mostly Blue-Footed Boobies. And I must say, I love Boobies.

By 9:00AM, we arrive at a small port on the Isla de Baltra and by 9:30 we are at the airport. Everyone is flying back to the mainland except Derek and I. Derek flies out the next morning but I am staying a couple of days and hope to do a dive with Hammerheads and Manta Rays one day and a hike somewhere the next. It takes Derek and I about 2 hours to get back to Puerto Ayora. We each get a room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for $25US per night and I find a dive shop to book some diving for $150US for the next morning. At 6:00PM, I head back to the dive shop to get fitted for my gear. I can´t wait, we will be diving at Gordon Rocks which is upposed to be a can´t miss for both Hammerhead Sharks and Manta Rays. Derek and I then head out for a nice dinner and when we get back to the hotel at 9:00PM, there is a refund and a note waiting for me saying sorry there were not enough people signed up to go diving the next morning. There are quite a few other dive shops and a rush out to see if any are still open but they all closed at 9:00PM and I just missed them. To make it even more frustrating, all the tour companies are also closed so tomorrow I will be in this great destination with nothong to do.

The next day I find a different dive shop that definitely has enough people diving to go for sure, I spend an hour looking for a nice Boobie shirt and I work on my blog. What a waste of a day. The next morning I am at the dive shop by 6:00AM and we are soon on a boat and on our way. There is 7 of us diving plus 2 dive masters. There are 2 guys and a girl from Israel, 2 guys amd a women from the US and me. Godon Rocks is basically 3 rock pillars that stick up from a deeper ocean floor. We are warned that there will be some strong currents but I dived in big currents at Isla de Coiba in Panama so I´m not worried but this will be my first dive with a wet suit. When we enter the water, we quickly dive beacuse of the current.

Playa Espumilla

We get down to just above the reef at 18m and the visibility sucks, it´s maybe around 5m. But right off the start, we have a Sea Lion zipping around us. I then see a large shape of a Manta Ray off to my left but it turns away and I see very little detail in the murky water. There are also quite a few jellyfish and they sting so I need to be wary as I´m not wearing a hood or gloves. The first dive lasts about 45 minutes, at one point the guide tries to point out a Hammehead but it´s too fsr away and all I see is a vague unrecognizable shape. We do see a nice Eagle Ray during our 5 metres safety stop but not much else, hopefully the 2nd dive will be better. After a 50 minute interval, we head back down for the 2nd dive. I´m now wearing some wool gloves to help protect from the jellyfish and I´m so glad I have them on. There is jellyfish everywhere. They are small but have tentacles that hang down about 30cm. They are at every depth and there a probably 5 to 10 of them in every cubic metre of water.

Within 15 minutes, I´ve been stung on both of my cheeks, my throat and on one wrist. It feels like a bad sunburn and keeping jellyfish out of my face is a constant job for my hands. I get stung on the neck again and I have seen nothing but jellyfish so far and I´ve had enough. The dive master is quite far ahead so I signal to my dive buddy that I am heading up. I do a 3 minute safety stop at 5m and surface. One of the dive masters comes up a few minutes later and I tell him I have been stung several times and I have had enough. By then another diver has surfaced nearby and he has been stung several times as well and the boat comes and picks us up. What a drag, conditions for diving were excellent everywhere I snorkelled, too bad it was so bad at Gordon Rocks and what a waste of $150US.

The next morning I´m up early and catch a bus, ferry and bus to the airport for a noon flight to Quito. Although the last 2 days did not go as planned, the crusie was fantastic and is definitely one of the top things I´ve done on the trip so far. The islands and the animals are just so unique but abundant. I would recommend for anyone going to Ecuador to include the Galapagos Islands on their trip.

Adios Galapagos.